This hotel by international standards is not quite up to scratch.

The standard of the rooms is variable. The newly decorated rooms with the garden views are the best value, even though the furniture is well past its best. The more luxurious rooms really let the hotel down, compared to say the standards you find at say The Westin Resort in Fiji or the The Thala beach resort in Queensland, (which charge equivalent rates),.

The food is ok, but the service is agonisingly slow, you can easily finish a bottle of wine before the starter arrives. The demeanour of the staff is variable, The desk and concierge staff were friendly and courteous, as were the more senior restaurant staff. However, some of their colleagues were less than friendly. It costs nothing to smile

In conclusion, They need to smarten up the place and look at the competition

Just come back from an 8 day stay at Colony Club.

Overall it is an excellent place, in a very good position and has a nice relaxing feel about the place. It's not luxurious but it is very good, and somehow you feel an upgrade to a 5 star rating would not suit the place. Better to be a great 4 star or good 4.5 star.

The staff were either very good or excellent (receoption staff were very good), breakfast buffet fine, evening entertainment mild and quiet but very pleasant for the background.

They offer a free boat ride to their other properties, and taking it to Tamarind Cove, then walking back along the beach, past Sandy Lane, swimming in private waters along the way, lunching at Cocomos, then Holetown back to Colony Club was just fantastic and relaxing. We walked back almost every day, only had one day when the sea was a bit rougher with the "tide" in that you could not do it in one stretch.

You can walk easily (just under one mile) into Holetown, although most people in Barbados do not seem to have any legs and take taxis everywhere.

Walking the other way along the beach (be careful of one slippery rocky path bit to watch out for), it takes 15 or so minutes to reach the wonderful lone star restaurant.

The beach vendors are extremely polite and charming, they easily accept a polite no, but they are always around and it does get on your nerves a little it after a while. The hotel should stop them approaching sunbeds that are set a little back from the sea and may perhaps be on the hotel's actual property.

My Wife & I have stayed at the Colony Club twice - and I'm in the process of booking a return in May this year.
From the minute we arrived we were greeted politely and had our bags taken up to our (spectacular) ocean view room.
The service throughout our stays has been superb (OK lets be realistic there are always one or two staff who don't live up to expectations at times and can appear surly but we're all human!!)
I wasn't sure about the hawkers on the beach on our first day - especially as I got "talked into" a back massage after being there for 10 minutes..but hey it was really good and once you get to know all the traders they'll just come and chat with you as they're passing and it got to the stage where I greeted them all soundly each time I saw them - I didn't buy anything though!
The water sports team here are a great bunch of guys - especially Raymond (The one in the Man United shirt if you've been) who came up to chat every day and thoroughly looked after us throughout our stay.
The only negatives I can report are the usual problems - loungers being claimed in the early hours (the sad thing is you end up doing it too just to get one!)
The "Cabaret entertainment" during the themed nights - Give it a miss and dine out! and the nightly Tree Frogs chorus which if you've never been to the carribean takes some getting used to before you can get to sleep.

I stayed at the Colony Club for three nights before boarding a cruise ship in Barbados. Although I had reserved a deluxe poolside room, when
I arrived I was told this room was not available. I couldn't seem to impress upon the front desk that was why I reserved a particular room....to make sure the room I wanted was available for me! Ah well.
They upgraded me to a junior suite, which actually turned out much better; a gorgeous room with a huge bathroom and tub, a nice sitting area, bar area, and expansive patio, overlooking a pool complete with rock waterfall. Okay, this will do.

I was glad I had included meals with my room charge....my gosh were they expensive. Traveling solo, one dinner check was $104! The food was great, too. Service very nice here as well.

Two things I didn't care for: there was a smaller closet in the room that, when you opened its door, reeked of mold so badly, I kept it shut for three days. Terrible. Also, upon checking out, I requested a later check-out since my ship didn't board until 2 in the afternoon. No can do. I ended up sitting in the lobby reading a book for two hours. They did have a "hospitality room", but only let you have it for a half hour at a time, so that didn't work out.

I loved the "Plantation Style" of the Colony Club. Beautiful and elegant. The rooms were gorgeous and the food top rate. However, to be quite honest, it was so incredibly expensive, I might look elsewhere should I return to Barbados.